Twenty Years Of Schoolin' & They Put You On The Day Shift

For those of us keeping track, today marks my 18th straight day of work since the ill-fated Hotel W. experiment -- a modern freelance record for me. I'm due back at LT. this coming Monday & Tuesday, so I'm guaranteed to have at least 20 days running. Then we play it by ear; maybe they won't need me Wednesday, for instance, but will ask me to come back on Thursday & Friday. But it's good that I'm basically the proofreader du jour, if not du whatever the French word for week is. Plus, as my regular readers will know, this week was significant in that I got Select back in the rotation. I am well nigh loved & respected there, getting along famously with all the kids. I got skills to pay the bills.

I'm not as superstitious as I used to be, life has beaten that out of me, so I must say that this L.T. gig is the least stressful $$$ I ever made. I'm used to proofreading or editing pages & pages of text copy under tight deadlines, so naturally this is going to seem easy by comparison. For instance, I was here 4 hours on Tuesday without a scintilla of work coming my way. Yesterday I had perhaps 15 minutes of total work out of 5 1/2 hours. Which means you really have to focus and concentrate when the work does come in. It's almost like my own personal internet cafe, but instead of me paying a buck for every 15 minutes, I am instead paid to sit here while I surf the proverbial net until I'm needed. But M. said he wants someone here ready in case something comes along. Usually it's a poster or advertisement for an upcoming show that I look at & then sign off on. I see it as a win-win situation for everyone involved. They get my unparalleled expertise in all matters proofreading, almost like I'm a proofing consultant; I get the benefit of their quite reasonable financial remuneration. Of course, they don't have to pay me benefits or the like. It seems like they laid off a lot of people in recent times, and it's a big TV network, so they're still way ahead if you look at like that. In fact, the network just paid the staggering sum of $500,000 per episode for the rights to broadcast a hit show that ABC owns.

Now, the reality is that it could all end at any time. But that is life itself in a nutshell: no guarantees all around. Anything can end at any time: a job, a relationship, a loved one. It's best to take it a day at a time while looking slightly ahead and keeping a positive outlook, like a mutant cross between Norman Vincent Peale and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Select Communique

Had just started my shift at L.T. yesterday -- my 14th straight day of work since the Friday I decided to quit the hotel and focus exclusively on freelancing -- when I got a call from A. saying S.Comm. wants me for tomorrow at 2:00. Trouble is, I was already booked by L.T. through Wednesday. An old-fashioned quandary, because L.T. likes me to stay at least till 4:00. But I told M. the sitch. Looking back, I probably would have been better off making up a doctor's appointment, because I could tell he was a little put off.

The thing is, I have to keep S. in the rotation. As those of you have been following along know, S. is my favorite & they pay great & I like working there & they were the first to hire me back in March I think it was, so I couldn't afford to take a chance of alienating them again by turning them down. (The problem with blogs is that they are read back to front but it is assumed that people are familiar with everything that came before.) They hadn't called me in a month since I had to turn them down two days running while I was training at Hotel W, which I never was paid for by the way. I could tell M. was a little ... oh, pissed is too strong a word, but he didn't like the idea of A. calling me with an assignment when they knew I was already booked here at L.T. for the day. I explained that it was a one time thing. I have to fill in the blanks with other stuff for the days when L.T. isn't gonna book me. It's called looking out for numero uno.

That said, it is good to be wanted. So I will work from 10-2 at L.T. here in Midtown, then shoot Downtown to Varick Street and work from 2:30 to whenever. This is how I envisioned freelancing eventually turning out. It's a juggling act. So again, just to belabor the point ad nauseum, I think I made, make that I know I made the right choice. I feel very good about myself and my work situation at this point. All I needed was a chance. I'm good at what I do, but as a proofreader you have to stay on your toes mentally because that one mistake could and probably will come back to haunt you; you're only as good as the last thing you do. That's what the client will remember. That and being professional and personable, of course. And in the back of your mind, you want to make the gals at my freelance agency proud of you, because they were there for me when I really needed them and they got me all this work. Of course I make them money as well by being booked. It's the proverbial two-way street.

I also want to do some proofreading on my own. Make up some cards and put them in the internet cafes in Astoria, in the coffee shops. I already have the name: EagleEyeProofreading. I can look at things like screenplays, books, freelance articles, cover letters, proposals, resumes, etc. Words are words. There are a lot of self-styled creative artist types in Astoria that I can tap into. I even have a logo in mind, the eye of an eagle looking thru a magnifying glass at some printed type on a page. Why settle for less than perfect? could be the motto. Oh it's all taking off for me now. Who can take a nothing day and certainly make it all seem worthwhile?

Leading American MEdiocrities

It should be self-explanatory, but celebrities make this list via a combination of extreme overexposure, financial success beyond all common bounds of decency, and a demonstrable, tangible lack of talent and taste. Here we go, in no particular order of crappiness, general annoyance and/or damage to Western Civilization.

Adam Sandler - the modern face of multiplex mediocrity
Matt Lauer - the morning show moron looks clinically insane
Regis Philbin - Just. Go. Away. Already.
Ray Romano - embodiment of the safe, smug suburban asshole
Bon Jovi - his anti-Bush sentiments aren't enough to save this teeny-bopping poseur
Taylor Hicks - manufactured winner of glorified karaoke contest: somebody had to win
George W. Bush - a consensus choice for worst president ever and head of a dangerous cult of lunatics known as Republicans
Robin Williams - has literally not said anything funny since 1982
Chevy Chase - founding father for all the SNL alumni who have poisoned movies since the late 1970s
Drew Barrymore - has anyone seen even one picture of this "actress" without her trademark vacuous smile?
Bruce Willis - king of the forgettable action heroes
Tom Cruise - Scientologist head case
Eva Longoria - current reigning bimbo queen and future has-been
Kevin Costner - the poster child for painfully wooden acting
Ashton Kutcher - a male bimbo and from all accounts a total douchebag who astoundingly had even 15 minutes of fame
Everyone from the cast of Friends
Keanu Reeves - an embarrassingly inept actor even by today's low standards, who wouldn't dream of appearing in a film that wasn't totally carried by CGI or other special effects
Katie Couric - is anyone else sick of her inane gummy smile by now?
Tim Allen - ex-cokehead jerkoff who wallows in a uniquely American strain of self-satisfied dumbness
Sylvestor Stallone - one of the leading avatars of cinematic stupidity
Madonna - her inexplicable popularity and critical acclaim have always baffled
Jim Belushi - all the talent in the family obviously went to his late, demented, brilliant brother
Dr. Phil - a fat greedy charlatan who should be clubbed to death by sadistic Japanese seal hunters
Rosie O'Donnell - even her affected public Lesbianism gives her zero hipness
Howard Stern - was funny for about 5 minutes in the 1980s; his horrible, ugly fan base says it all
David Hasselhoff - couldn't even make the D-list of bad television actors
Dan Ackroyd - actually a case of squandered comedic talent: why couldn't he have died young instead of his long-deceased Blues Brother?

Mother Of All Websites

I have become obsessed with Wikipedia, the incredible online encylopedia. The whole history of civilization is literally at your fingertips! One search leads to another, which leads to another, and each entry has links within it. These are just some of the topics I have researched in recent days:
Easter Island
Stonehenge
Pol Pot
Pirates
Hitler
Llamas
Stalin Purges
SamuelBeckett
Ancient Greece
ConcentrationCamps
Mussolini
Shining Path
Swastikas
SpanishInquisition
Crucifixion


Random Wikipedia Facts:
Adolph Hitler was a strict vegeterian;

Some have theorized that Stonehenge, seen from above, represents the female sexual organ;

The word faggot to describe homosexuals comes from the twigs used to burn them at the stake in Medieval times;

Pirates wore heavy gold earrings because they thought pressure on the ear eased seasickness, and because the gold could be used to pay for funeral expenses;

The more irritated a llama is, the further back into each of its three stomach compartments it will reach to draw materials for its spit;

The word excruciating comes from crucifixion;

The swastika symbol dates to the 5th Millenium BC and is found in Hindu and Buddhist temples; is on the flag of the Kuna people of Panama; was used by American Indians, ancient Greeks as well as Celtic peoples; was seen on Arizona state highway markers until the late 1920s; and was worn as a unit symbol by the 45th Infantry of the U.S. Army until the 1930s;

In Ancient Greece, street prosititutes not only were registered and paid taxes, but some wore sandals with marked soles that left an imprint stating "Follow Me" on the ground;

According to oral tradition, a common insult on Easter Island was, "The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth."

The Next Best Thing

Not only am I booked thru-out this week, but M. P., the titular head of the production dept., just came over and said I was working out better than the other proofreaders they use and, although at the present time he couldn't offer me a full-time position per se, meaning 40 hours each and every week, he wants me to come in on a consistent basis every week! How fucking great is that? Plus, 30 hours here at 22 an hour adds up to 40 hours at the hotel at 15 per, and the schedule here is much, much better. Okay, so no benefits, but it's the next best thing. And if a full-time official position does open up, he seemed to intimate that I would likely be considered for that. I like all the people I interact with here, in fact the office is filled with cute young creative intelligent female type womenfolk, and M. said if I need to work around some other jobs like last week, he would be amenable to that. So it looks like at least for now I made the right decision to stick with the wild & wacky world of freelance proofreading. And let's face it: it would have been a waste of my immense mental talents to stand behind a hotel desk and wait on precious, pampered East Side types. This gives me a certain peace of mind, at least temporarily, because nothing is forever, nothing is guaranteed and, in the immortal words of one Bobby Dylan, nothing was delivered.

Here All Week

I am booked at L.T. thru this week, so that will give me a string of 12 days of work in a row, which isn't bad for freelancing; usually there are some gaps. So without trying to jinx myself, ever since I made up my mind to forgo the hotel and stick to freelancing, I've worked every day, not counting the 4th of July. In fact, I would have been better off never saying yes to the hotel job, because not only does it look like I won't be getting paid for the training days I put in, but I could have worked that whole week either at S. or at L.T. -- plus, I may have somehow alienated the folks at S.C. because when they really needed me I had to turn them down. I would have never fallen behind money-wise if I had just stuck to freelancing. But at the time I thought the hotel gig would work out, before I realized what I was getting into. I won't go into the details; I already outlined them in previous posts.

This L.T. proofreading gig might be the easiest work I've ever done. There are enormous gaps between things to proof. Basically I'm looking at the same posters and ads for the same shows over and over again, which run in trade publications as well as on the sides of buses and on top of taxicabs. It is the opposite of catering, the yin to its yang. In catering you're busy for 5 or 6 hours and you're lucky if you get a 5 or 10 minute break; here there's about 20 or 30 minutes of work for every 5 or 6 hour shift. In catering you're on your feet all day, running around and doing a thousand different menial tasks; here I sit on my butt and use my brain. It's almost too good to be true, but they keep asking me back and seem to appreciate my effort and my expertise. Today I caught a bunch of errors in a glossy promotional package they were sending out; that made me feel useful, and apparently they're gonna have to reprint the entire 200 or so letters. So I have been justifying my presence here. But I really would rather be kept busy because the time goes quicker. Ah, who am I fooling? I'm sure you don't believe a word of it.

At the other proofreading gigs, at S.C. and especially last week at C.B., I'm usually kept busy the entire time. They really don't call you unless there's a specific need or publication date coming up, whereas here at L.T. I'm on standby, so to speak, more of a consultant, where in the parlance of the office, I sign off on this or that ad, meaning it's good to go. I'm fortunate this gig showed up when it did, and hopefully I'll be needed at least 3 times a week for the foreseeable future. I don't want to obsess about it, but I wish Select would call sometime soon so that I can get back in their rotation. You'll be the first to know when it happens, here on WardensWorld!

In Demand

Booked solid this week: Monday & Friday at L.T., Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday at C.B., and L.T. said they would need me on Wednesday night for a couple of hours, which means a minimum of 4 hours as that's the minimum billing charge at A. Sweet. It's nice to be in demand. And if S. calls, I will try to squeeze them in Tuesday or Thursday nite. This could be the week that really gets me caught up, or close to it. Actually I need about a month where I'm booked solid every day. At least this week it looks like I made the right choice in not giving up the freelance stuff. I still haven't told anyone I gave the hotel job up after 3 days. Most people wouldn't understand my logic. They never do. So this is an exclusive WardensWorld scoop!

Pseudo-celebrity sighting: Last Wednesday, I think it was, near Madison Square Garden, saw a pensive bordering on sad-looking Curtis Sliwa, the former Mafia Kidnapping Victim & current Right Wing Talk Radio Blowhard, wearing his trademark Guardian Angels red beret & red jacket, with Curtis emblazoned in cursive across his chest. I mean, if you were kidnapped even once, would you make it easy for future kidnappers to identify you or would you at the least adopt some rudimentary disguise?...

...I'm still trying to figure out which is more disturbing when it comes to North Korean madman Kim Jong Il: his ridiculous hairdo or the fact that he owns the planet's largest collection of Daffy Duck videos. Oh yeah, and he has killed millions of his own people through starvation and labor camps in his police state and he is intent on trying to create a next world war. This guy makes Our Guy look stable.

If you added up the total viewing time I spent watching American Idol, it would be under an hour. That's not just this year, it's all the years. Does that make me a perfect sentient being? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing I am not is a sheep, which sets me apart from most Americans. Idol is nothing more than a totally manufactured, overhyped talent contest. And because of it we now have to be subjected to this year's "winner" Taylor Whatshisname's horrid caterwauling on those near-ubiquitous car commercials. It doesn't seem fair that those of us who avoided watching that crap night after night are now exposed to an overexposed hack of a singer. Let me get this straight: people are supposed to choose a certain vehicle based on this ad campaign? I think it's more likely that anyone hearing this guy will drive off the road. Bloody awful.

American Idol is on a list of network shows that I will never watch; it joins the following shows that give me a feeling of nausea deep in the pit of my stomach: Lost, House, any home makeover show, all state-sponsored propaganda like 24, any medical or hospital show, anything on CBS with an acronym in it, including CSI, NCIS, JAG; any show where a bunch of vapid, braindead young narcissists share a house or an apartment (except for America's Next Top Model), all teenage soap opera fare that runs endlessly on the WB or on UPN (except for the always amusing Gilmore Girls); any fictional portrayal of the life of a president (i.e., West Wing, Commander in Chief); all Survivor incarnations, and most police procedural dramas, including Law & Order, although I used to love NYPD Blue in its heyday. Obviously that doesn't leave much except the aforementioned Top Model, reruns of King of Queens, The Simpsons and Seinfeld, The Office (the American one), some Sex & The City, Girlfriends (also known as the Black Sex & The City), the occasional Jeopardy, Hell's Kitchen, Globetrekker, Antiques Roadshow once in a while and New York Noise. When I had cable I really only watched HBO, Independent Film Channel and Turner Classic Movies. I thought Deadwood was the best show in many years, heads & shoulders above the criminally overrated Sopranos. That's about it in this age of the reality show nightmare. Then there's radio, reading and listening to music. And oh yeah, going outside.

Change Of Plans

Lo and behold, I sit here again at L.TV, a half-hour early for my 11 to 4 shift. I'm booked here for the rest of this week, then 3 days next week at C.B. I'm hoping Select will fill in the blanks. I almost got a 4th account, an advertising agency that wanted to know if I was available for work over the July 4th weekend. Of course I said I was, but they never called. Oh well, at least I'm on the radar. Now, you may ask, why am I sitting here if I'm supposed to be training at Le Hotel W. Well... I decided after 2 days of training and around 3 days of heavy consideration that it was never going to work out. I thought about it long and hard, and I did not make the decision lightly.

In order for me to undertake the training at the Hotel, I would have had to put my freelance jobs on hold. It took me like 4 months to build up my portfolio, if you will, and reach the point where I am consistently considered for freelance work at 3 different places. First, the freelance stuff pays a lot more. The hours are normal, not 11pm to 7am. Now, what would have happened if two months down the line the hotel didn't work out? Then I would be left with nothing -- no freelance work, because they would have just gone on to the next available proofreader. And I just had a gut feeling that the hotel was not gonna work out. I didn't like it at all, there was a ton of stuff still to learn. I was stressed out about learning all the stuff, but still confident that I would eventually learn it all. With all the stuff to learn, I was looking at a mininum of 3, 4, maybe even 5 weeks before I could begin the night shift. By then all the freelance stuff would be gone to some other proofreader. It just didn't seem like a good fit. So I took a chance. Time will tell if it was the right thing to do.

I found myself outside the Hotel W at 5 to 10 last Friday, wondering if I should go in and resume training or if I should find R. and tell him it wasn't gonna work out. I had just moments before received a call from K. at my freelance agency telling me that C.B. wanted me for at least 3 days during the week of July 10. I already knew that LT wanted me for this week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So I was sitting there pondering all this when a bus rolled by with one of the very posters on the side that I had proofread! I took that as a sign. So I went in and told R. of my decision. Now, in any event, the benefits were not gonna kick in for 3 months anyway at the hotel. So what am i really losing there? I have 20 years of experience in publishing, zero experience in the hotel game. I think the freelance stuff is only gonna get more steady from here on in. All I need is two more good gigs to go with the three I'm jugging now and I will really be in business. I'm gonna stay positive.

Now, I know some of you are not gonna agree with my decision. But I had to go with my heart on this one. The big differentiating factor is that I actually like my freelance work, look forward to it, while I don't think that was ever going to be the case at the hotel; I was never going to be comfortable. And the hours! Plus it paid like 10 dollars an hour less. The only upside was the steady nature of the work. All I need though is 4 days a week freelancing to match the 5 days at the hotel. In the back of my mind i'm counting on the catering work in the fall to make up for any shortfall. That's if Tony still lets me do it once he finds out I "bailed" on the hotel. After all, he got me the interview thru a friend of his. We'll see. I don't consider it bailing.

Ironically, I applied for a night proofreading gig, 8pm to 2am, on craigslist last week. Pays 24 bucks an hour. It's a night shift, but not the graveyard shift. If I get that I would really be on my way; then I can pick and choose the occasional freelance assignment. I feel like a fool because I called everyone and their mother as the saying goes as soon as I got the hotel job, telling them how excited I was to finally land a ful-ltime, permanent position. But the more I think about it, the more I know I made the right decision, as much as we can ever know something with certainty. That's it in a nutshell.

Reprogrammed my iRiver over the weekend, deleting about 5 hours worth of music (out of a total of around 17 1/2 hours) & replacing it mostly with Vintage Punk that was heretofore in short supply. I got rid of stuff I already had in other formats, like Hendrix and REM, and put in a lot of Clash, Gang of 4, XRay Spex, Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys, Stiff Little Fingers, old Bowie & some much-needed Jayhawks, Son Volt, early Wilco...now it feels more like me somehow.

Been on a major reading kick, the best spate in literally years and years. Started with the Columbus Last Voyage book, continued on through Massacres of the American West, then read a few sports books, bios of Bill Bellichick and Roberto Clemente, continued with a definitive bio of Cambodian madman Pol Pot, then finished Red Scarf Girl, a memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as seen thru the eyes of a teenager. I guess I gravitate toward political extremism.

One interesting aspect of the Cambodian revolution was how closely it mirrored the French Revolution in its use of terror, how Robespierre was in fact a direct historical antecedent to Pol Pot, even more than the more obvious communist models. Not to be overlooked is the part the U.S. played in setting the conditions that allowed political extremism to flourish: the indiscriminate bombings, its support of corrupt right wing regimes, etc. Even more mind-numbing is the reaction by the U.S. to the fall of Pol Pot's regime; rather than elation, administration after administration saw fit to lend their support to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, in hopes that a new government would eventually oust the one installed in Cambodia by Vietnam. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, seems to be the guiding principle, then as now.

Now I am reading an account of North Vietnam circa 1967 by Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury that I found for a buck at Argosy on 59th Street. One book usually leads to another when you're on a good roll. Also reading an account of the Greek resistance during WWII. Turns out that America and Britain basically prevented the Communists from having any say in the postwar process even though they valiantly fought the fascists during the war. Then America had a big role installing the brutal reactionary government of the Colonels from 1967 to 1974.

More to follow as details make themselves known.